Listening

Stirrings

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks.  Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.

~ Linda Hogan

Story of the fall

There are occasions when you can hear the mysterious language of the Earth, in water, or coming through the trees, emanating from the mosses, seeping through the undercurrents of the soil, but you have to be willing to wait and receive.

~ John Hay, The Immortal Wilderness

Listening to the water at high tide.

In a society so estranged from animals as ours, we often fail to credit them with any form of language.  If we do, it comes under the heading of communication rather than speech.  And yet, the great silence we have imposed on the rest of life contains innumerable forms of expression.  Where does our own language come from but this unfathomed store that characterizes innumerable species?

We are now more than halfway removed from what the unwritten word meant to our ancestors, who believed in the original, primal word behind all manifestations of the spirit.  You sang because you were answered.  The answers come from life around you.  Prayers, chants, and songs were also responses to the elements, to the wind, the sun and stars, the Great Mystery behind them.  Life on earth springs from a collateral magic that we rarely consult.  We avoid the unknown as if we were afraid that contact would lower our sense of self-esteem.

~ John Hay, A Beginner’s Faith in Things Unseen

A song in the meadow

Thanks for stopping by, for reading, for commenting, or for just having a look around.  This is a scheduled post.  I’m off on a small adventure.  Be back soon.

Connections

Be good, be kind, be loving.  Just Be.  🙂